


Tree of Knowledge

by Vulgarweed



Category: Good Omens - Gaiman & Pratchett
Genre: D/s, Drugs, Exhibitionism, Light Bondage, M/M, Threesome - M/M/M, Voyeurism, autoeroticism, doppleganger sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-27
Updated: 2010-03-27
Packaged: 2017-10-08 08:40:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vulgarweed/pseuds/Vulgarweed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trying to find his way in his world, grown-up Adam Young undertakes a vision quest that turns surprisingly tactile and attains self-knowledge--in the Biblical sense. And the "spirit guides" who challenge him do so in a most shocking manner. Giftfic for Waxbean in the 2006 GO Holiday Exchange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tree of Knowledge

Ten years later, Adam Young remembered _everything._

For one terrible evening, he was the only one who did. What he remembered wasn't only that night when everything and nothing happened at once and he'd made a momentous decision with the clear logic of a child—the kind he wasn't sure he could rely upon now that he'd got so much more complicated somehow. It was glimpses from his childhood where things weren't what they seemed. Some kind of bone-deep knowledge. Dog could easily have been something other than he was.

There were magazines and books and fancies that were always more concrete to him than to the other children. (He could be a writer. He could make films. He thought sometimes he would like to do something like that, and then he danced away from the thought because he feared this very concreteness he could create.)

Before that there was a nun who talked too much, and a chill graveyard and harsh voices, and a familiar face in dark glasses looking down at him in stark terror.

And before that, there was…

Adam sat up straight in bed and spent the rest of the night, what little there was of it, staring at the wall. In moods like this, television was no good. Books were no good. Even the very oldest pastime of healthy young male primates everywhere was risky. Not even he knew what might show up unbidden to visit.

He knew who he was. He knew what he was. Sometimes, in some wild moments, he thought he might even have a glimmering thought of _why _he was. The only thing he didn't know was _how._ To be himself, that is, and live in the world that was his without terrible things forming around his footprints and springing up in the corners of his eyes, desires and fears both being such potent forces. He had even tried to not be what he was; apparently, that was the only thing he could not change if he set his mind to it.

Researching what had been said about himself in Daniel and Revelations and all that copious commentary wouldn't do a bit of good. He'd seen to that himself.

Just in case he might drift off, he willed himself hard not to dream.

***

By the next afternoon, everyone with something to remember did too.

Anathema was waiting for him with tea and cake, having just hustled Newt off to work and out of the way.

The last time Adam had broached this subject, it had been more tentatively and less urgently. Anathema had suggested a book she was trying to get Newt to read, about the Male Mysteries and how important it is to _express one's feelings_ with other men about separation from one's father, and at best persuade said father to come along and help to heal the warrior's wound. There were sweat lodges and naked drum circles involved. A third of the way into the speech, she'd started to rethink that very sharply.

But Anathema had spent most of the wee hours preparing for this, after all, and when she faced the disconcertingly beautiful young man, she was ready to take a more serious tack.

"Know thyself," she said simply. "That's from an older oracle than Agnes."

"I do know myself," Adam said. "I reckon I know myself better'n anybody."

"But that's not enough now, is it?"

"It's not me I'm worried about, it's…"

"Everybody else."

"Yeah."

***  
Pepper felt unaccountably cold.

Wensleydale's hands began to shake.

Brian lost his appetite.

Newt sneezed so hard he almost ran off the road.

Shadwell cut his lip on a milk tin.

Madame Tracy spilled her perfume.

Crowley tripped over his glass coffee table.

Aziraphale dropped a teacup.

***

"Not just them, the people who were there, I mean…you must know, right, how much do I have to explain?"

"Not much," Anathema said, unconsciously placing her hand protectively over her belly.

"Congratulations, by the way," said Adam. Her second.

"Thank you," she beamed.

"Do you know if it's gonna be a—"

"Of course I do, and so do you if you think about it," she said. "And no changing it! I'll know if you did."

"Sorry," he said. "That's the whole point, that I have to—I know myself already, that's the problem, see. And the problem is that, well, of course it's what I am an' all, but what makes it bad is that I'm so bloody human on top of it I can't trust myself. I mean, I want things! I want a _lot_ of things." He chose not to elaborate on the nature of things he'd been wanting most over the last few years. "And I tend to _get_ them. And I'll never know if it's because I'm lucky, or I worked hard, or because I'm _me._ And I can't ever know, y'know, if I want something good to happen to somebody I like, if I just think about it too hard…And if there's somebody I don't like, I…well, I'm human!"

Anathema furrowed her brow and thought about it, _really_ thought about it, and she gasped in such horror she bit the back of her hand to suppress it. "Oh dear," she said.

"So," he finally said, knowing he was about to broach a very delicate subject. "I understand there was a…second book."

"There _was,"_ Anathema said, a little stricken.

"Thought so. I also s'pose she knew if you were going to burn it or not."

"I didn't read it," Anathema admitted. "I don't know if there was anything about you in." The terrible thought that occurred to her was—if she had read it, would there have been?

Adam nodded. He was willing to let this drop, because the paradox of it was already reminding him of some of the books he'd tried to read on modern physics, and, well, that way led Really Bad Madness—maybe not worse than Revelation but a whole lot weirder, and with possibly a similar (if more imaginative) general effect.

Finally Anathema grew tired of drumming her nails and being frightened, and made an audacious suggestion. "Have you ever gone on a vision quest?"

Adam blinked. He hadn't thought about that in years, and so he started babbling about books he'd read long ago about noble young American Indians painting themselves and walking out into the forest to starve and hallucinate. They always came back—_if_ they came back--with a spirit guide who would help them hunt buffalo. Adam thought this might be just the ticket if there were buffalo in Tadfield (or forests, for that matter) or if he was really in danger of having trouble hunting them if there had been.

"It's not about that," Anathema said. "It's about being tested."

"I'm pretty sure I _was."_

"I think so too. That was a humdinger, actually. But…sometimes people need it more than once. It's good for you. Maybe what you want is another one."

"Maybe. I just don't want to…it can't be over the fate of the whole world this time, can it?"

"I don't think so. I think we've been through that already. I think that test was for everyone's sake and I think this one is for _you."_

"Well…" Adam was about to say it couldn't hurt, but then he realised that of course it could, and that was the point.

"Anyway, it's a lot easier nowadays. You don't have to starve. Let me show you." And she led him into the kitchen.

As witches went, Anathema Device had in many ways proved disappointing to an avid consumer of young people's literature. She wasn't scary in the least, and she kept the garden of Jasmine Cottage unbecomingly neat and free of dark overgrown shadows. There were no particular rumours about her dwelling or her dietary habits—except she only ate health food, so probably had never indulged in cholesterol-heavy child-roast. She had never been said to curse a cow or bring bad weather (and honestly, Adam himself could hardly look askance at anyone for _that)_ and probably even had a perfectly normal number of nipples. She was practical and down-to-earth and relentlessly cheerful.

But when she really had to get down to it, she could toil and trouble with the best of them. What was steaming and gurgling in a chipped china pot on her stove was unmistakably, smokily, foul-smellingly, not a soup, not a stew, not even a potion, but a _brew_ of the very witchiest kind.

"What is it?" Adam asked a little hesitantly. "Belladonna? Wormwood? Mandrake?"

"Mostly ayahuasca," she admitted. "A little other stuff for safe-keeping and protection reasons. Try and keep it off the most dangerous flavours. I'm sorry I couldn't test it myself, but…" she patted her stomach apologetically.

"Oh, I understand," Adam said. "Believe me."

"It's just a suggestion," she said.

"I don't know where I'll find a better one," he said. "Still, though…"

"What's wrong?"

"I'm afraid of my mind, that's the whole problem. And if it's going to be doing weird things, weirder than usual, I mean…is there something you could…?"

"Something I could do?"

"I don't know," he muttered, in a state of disbelief that he was going to bring this up. "Cast a circle or something?"

"To contain _you?_ I doubt it."

Adam trembled a little.

"Visitors are coming, though," said Anathema, watching her broom fall across the door and her cat wash her face. "They _could_ be of help."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Adam laughed nervously.

(There would be two that evening, checking into the chintzy but undeniably scenic guesthouse that Tadfield Manor had become. Each chose it because he thought the other would like it or find it amusing. Both were wrong about this.)

In any event, when Adam got home with that taste of foetid swamp and old tyres still in his mouth, he saw to it that his family had elsewhere to be and that the doors were well bolted and the curtains well-drawn. The less he had to look at and be distracted by, the less he had to worry about protecting from himself. He made the room dark and silent, and clouds began to mute the bright daylight peering through the gaps in the shades. He battened down his hatches as best he could when his toes started to tingle.

None of the more unpleasant side effects he'd been warned of seemed to be happening. The bucket beside his bed might not be needed. And in his vision, nothing was moving that shouldn't be, furniture was not turning into anything else, and voices in his head weren't addressing him. Well, no more than usual.

He wondered if Anathema had botched something, or if such concoctions had no effect on his kind—and there really was no one else he could ask about that. He did know after much dedicated effort and repetitive experimentation that it was certainly possible (if ill-advised) for him to get shitfaced drunk, so he couldn't imagine why this brew should be different. At any rate, he was starting to suspect perhaps what he really needed more was a nap, and he closed his eyes.

When he opened them, he was looking at himself. Out-of-body experience, he thought, except he still seemed to be very much _in_ his body, and the problem was that the Adam he was looking at—and who was looking at him—was _not_ in it. What he was in was an extremely Adamlike body of his own.

Possibly even more Adamlike than Adam at that moment, because while Adam proper (or so he thought of himself) was wearing clothes, the other one was not. It was a fully faithful likeness in every respect, and Adam realised very inappropriately why he didn't ever have much trouble finding someone to be a special friend for an hour or two when he got a hankering for such a thing. It was a relief to know it was a simpler reason than the usual.

Adam had another self who always walked with him…that he rarely noticed, like a shadow. This other Adam stood taller and stiffer, his hair better-combed, his gleaming grey-blue eyes glacier-cool.

Adam proper looked again to make sure he hadn't left a mirror uncovered.

This other self would need no mirrors. Might not even be able to use them.

"Well…hello," he finally said.

"Hardly necessary to greet me," shrugged Adam 2, or perhaps he was really Adam 1 if one thought about it, which Adam didn't want to. "I've been here all along."

"Honestly, I thought I'd kind of…banished you."

"You can't and you know it. I'm half of you."

"I bet I could."

"But you won't because of the consequences. _Someone_ has to be You, you know. Or Us if you want to look at it that way. If it wasn't you, it would be someone else. And sometimes I wish it was. You're not much fun."

"Not your idea of fun, hell no," Adam blurted with no apparent sense of irony. "And you're not really me. You're not even half me. You're like, the anti-me."

"Ridiculous. If I was the Anti-you, that would make me…Double negative, see? Cancels itself out. And we sure know _that_ can't be it."

"S'pose not."

"Damn right."

"Anyway," Adam said. "It's not like I haven't been tempted, like He was. I reckon I have to be. It doesn't just happen once. It happens every bloody day and I'm sick of it."

The other Adam laughed harshly. "That's not proper temptation, you little pillock, that's just run of the mill human business. Seems like somebody with our firepower oughta get a better class of it, that's all. But who's gonna do it, right?

"Well, I think some folks tried to a long time ago…"

"They couldn't even _find_ you," said Other Adam, who looked like he wanted to add more commentary on this, perhaps something to do with body cavities, both hands, and hunting dogs.

"Well, I'm glad, because…"

"Because they wouldn't've done nearly as good a job as I can," said Adam Other, looking smug and producing from Somewhere (he had no pockets, after all) a tightly bound and yellowed manuscript. "I have something that you want very much to exist."

Adam's mouth went dry.

_The Nife and Accurate Prophesies of Events Transfpiring After Ye Ende_—by Agnes Nutter, Witch

His hands started to shake. Just a little.

"It's really interesting," said Adam the Fetch. "It can be even more interesting once you read it. Think about it – a book of the world. And everyone you know can know everything they want to know."

"But it didn't exist…at least, I don't think it did, because Agnes would have known…"

"And who's to say she didn't know about this?"

Adam went pale.

"Really, it's good. Listen to this: _And ye Son of Devyll and of Man shalle be Twain and yet Wonne. Lip to lip, skinne to skyne, for modefty ye Curtain's drawne."_

Adam went red. "That can't mean…"

"You were thinking it," said his shadow, licking his lips. "Or rather, we were." He reached out to touch the other's face. His hands were not shaking, not one little bit. He moved instead with a leonine stalk when he kissed Adam.

Lightning crackled. A beam of sunlight showed through the rain and cast a rainbow in most unnatural colours. The Shadow tasted of all these things, and of boy spit and clove cigarettes and hash cake that'd been squished in the hidden bottom of somebody's suitcase for two weeks after holiday in Amsterdam, and musk and earth. He could, in fact, taste of anything and everything.

"Temptation," Adam proper, son of man, whispered as the full lips departed his mouth so slowly and brushed his jaw. "It's kind of sick, isn't it? Like incest?"

"More like wanking, really," whispered Adam Other right back. "Only better. Lots better," as if the hands under Adam's shirt weren't demonstrating that already.

"Can do that…myself…just fine…"

"Oh, _can_ you?" laughed the Shadow, attacking him. No. He could not suck his own earlobe, true. Unless he was doing just that.

Adam finally pushed his doppelganger a little ways back, panting. "That's cheap!" he shouted. "I mean, the book. It's whatever I think _should_ be in it, isn't it? Or _you_ think should be in it. Otherwise it's not real."

"Of course it's real. As real as you are."

Adam buried his face in his hands, pulling his own hair.

"Read me something I don't already know then. If the book's real, it should have stuff in it I don't know."

"All right then, next verse:_ And there be Peas in younge Adam's Dumaine; myne own seed and ye Wytchfinder's faire Babes sharle growe stronge—Dotters Two and son wonne…"_

"Two-thirds there. I knew most of that."

_"And ye Blacke Ryder's twynne shalle take a giant Eagle to Steede"_

"Yes, Wensley's going for his pilot's licence, I knew that."

_"And ye Swordbearer Syster sharl Curse ye Warriors,_

"Pepper's at some peace march every week, that's not news."

_"And ye Filthebryinger's Twynne shale Groome ye Gardene,"_

"That's Brian, up to his neck in the compost,"

_"And ye Garden's guardian, angyll of old, shalle lye with ye Serpente."_

Adam blinked.

"Er…she means that metaphorically, right? Like 'the lion shall lie down with the lamb'?"

"I dunno," leered Adam Other. "She's really pretty literal when you get down to it."

Adam blinked again. "Well, _ that_ I didn't know."

His Shadow brightened, crowned with a sort of sun. A gloat. A delicious, all-but-irresistible gloat. All-but-irresistible to kiss it or slap it, that is. "So," he drawled. "Either it's something you want to be true, so you might be right about this book, or it's a very odd idea that _never even occurred to you_…and if it is…then this book…"

"Is real." Adam swallowed hard. The other Adam leaned over him languorously, arm draping across his shoulder, a patch of golden light falling across the firm lines of his chest and his scent brushing Adam's nose like a silk scarf. "But I suppose…only if it's true."

"She's got a good track record, you've got to admit."

Adam could not, simply could not, resist the urge to touch any longer. He was starting to think, although possibly not with the smartest of heads, that there were ways to contain his problematic other half in this bedroom right here and inflict little stress on the outside world. "Actually," he said softly. "I think it's some crazy rumour you made up. It's a prophecy, not a tabloid."

"Not much diff'rence in the old days."

"But if it's true, then…" Adam proper, Mr. Young's son, did _not_ like the way this was going.

"Then you really oughta read the rest of the book. Because it'll tell you what you need to do."

"If it's true –" Adam sighed, thinking at the very least he could put up a half-decent sort of fight with his hands and mouth. A manageable, possibly painless, possibly very pleasant sort of fight. "then it's none of my bloody business."

"The whole _world_ is our business," whispered the Other. "Look at the big picture. And say I'm with you. Say we want to do the right thing, always. There's a _way."_

Adam bit his neck. But the shadow would not be distracted away. Finally the insistent one smiled, "We can find out. They're not far."

Adam cringed. That much, he knew, was true.

"Let's go see," said the Shadow.

"You're not goin' out there starkers. At least, I know my clothes'll fit you."

"Nobody can see me but you."

Adam wondered for a horrible moment, what if the opposite was true? What if _he_ was the invisible one now?

One small temptation. "An' if it's true," said the Other, goading, "Then you'll do it?"

"Maybe," Adam said, while his mind quietly screamed, _I won't. I won't._

That was how Adam came to be stretched along a thick branch of an ancient apple tree that afforded him an excellent sightline to a third-floor window, his spitting image leaning close behind him. For all that it was a dangerous place to be on a stormy night for most, it wasn't an issue for either of him. He was so invested in this outcome he didn't even realise that he shouldn't have been able to hear.

***

Crowley was pacing. Aziraphale slammed the phone receiver down.

"No answer."

"'Course not. He knows we're here."

"You think he's avoiding us?" Aziraphale asked.

"Yeah. I probably would too in his place. I imagine he's got a lot of thinking to do."

Aziraphale _tsk_ed loudly and sat down at the antique dressing table, fiddling with his cufflinks.

Crowley sat down with a creak on the bed and drew a coin from his pocket. "Which means we probably have a lot of time to kill."

Aziraphale saw his reflection in the mirror, tossing the coin. "Crowley, it's hardly the time."

"I know," the demon grinned. "To every purpose a season and all that. But—" he spun it once and flattened it on the back of his hand. "Tailsss it issss."

Aziraphale whirled around, chair and all, his eyes a little wide. "Did you cheat?"

"No, where's the fun in that?"

A being of angelic stock sometimes moves too fast to see. By the time Adam was done blinking, the chair in the room had spun out sideways and Aziraphale was on his back on the clean but threadbare rug with Crowley atop him. Crowley grasped Aziraphale's hair to pull his head up for a kiss that started out hard and eased into long and deep.

Adam's knuckles whitened on the branch. He heard chilling, easy laughter in his ear, a breathy sound that seemed to contain "true." He closed his eyes for a moment, and opened them lest he miss something.

Aziraphale was flailing a little, pushing at Crowley and squirming, and Adam started to think this wasn't quite cricket. "But he's _fighting_ it…I should…"

"Don't be so naïve," said his Shadow. "They do this all the time. It's a game, see…"

Indeed, it had taken Crowley just a very short time to subdue his prey, with caresses and bites and yes, a hypnotic stare; he held Aziraphale still and pinned. Adam drew a sharp breath as Crowley slid two of his fingers into Aziraphale's mouth.

Adam felt a hot breath on his own neck.

What he was doing wasn't decent. One just didn't spy on this kind of thing…but really, the field agents of Heaven and Hell dealing in such a bargain, not much good for their nominal assignments but to all appearances _very_ good at negotiating with each other…how could he _not?_

A sudden cry came from Aziraphale as Crowley's other hand under his shirt and waistcoat did something both pleasurable and painful; presumably that was then a nip to the fingers presented to him, a slight arch of the demon's spine, and Adam was mesmerised. He wasn't going anywhere now, for his response had gone well beyond curiosity.

Lightning lit up the sky; Adam glanced back to see himself halo'd in silver briefly and with a wild expression in his uncanny eyes. There was a warm hand on his shoulder, sliding slowly down his chest as intermittent large drops of rain began to spatter the leaves around them.

Over the crack of thunder, Adam shouldn't have been able to hear Crowley whisper to Aziraphale, "Undress me."

Adam's ears were sharply attuned. He heard because he wanted to, and because he could certainly see the angel's trembling hands unbuttoning the shirt of the demon straddling him, caressing Crowley's belly and sides eagerly, and attacking his belt with fumbling ferocity. A little sound escaped Adam as Aziraphale pushed Crowley's black trousers down as far as he could, fingers digging into slim hips and nicely-formed firm arse just half-showing beneath the open shirttails…

His Other was nibbling the back of his neck. Adam gave a little groan and pressed his hips involuntarily into the unyielding branch. Was that what his own hand felt like when it ran slowly over someone else's buttocks, kneading warm flesh through worn denim, when it passed across the side of another's thigh and pressed against…oh _fuck._ To _touch_ him…

"Mmm," said the Adam nearly on top of him now. Anathema had not warned him about this side effect. Maybe someday he would be drunk enough to have a strong word with her. But not about how _this_ Adam, this other, unsurprisingly, knew what he liked.

Though Adam wanted to close his eyes and enjoy his own sensations he could not quite stop watching as the angel in the room was having more of a struggle; Aziraphale's manicured hand reached most naturally for his lover's flushed and upright cock, only to have his wrists seized and solidly pinned above his head. "Patience," Crowley whispered, "is a…whaddaya call it?"

Aziraphale made an inarticulate noise, rebelliously squirming.

"But there's nothing…of that kind…about what I'm going to do to you," the demon said, his voice low and threatening.

Adam stifled a moan against the tree as a hand lifted his t-shirt and licked his spine, moist breeze picking up and tingling the trail of Other-Adam's tongue.

In the room, Crowley was crawling forward, his yellow eyes ablaze with lust. With a snap of his fingers, a large pillow raised Aziraphale's head to face him, and then Crowley pressed his hips forward, straddling the angel's shoulders, and brushed the head of his cock against Aziraphale's lips. Aziraphale closed his eyes and opened his mouth, and made a frustrated sound when Crowley pulled away quickly.

"Oh, you _want_ it," the demon breathed. Aziraphale's pink tongue darted out and swiped across his own lips. Crowley groaned a little and pressed himself there again, only to dance away once more, and Aziraphale chased him to the limits of his neck.

Adam's hips were pulled up rudely, and he almost lost his grip on the branch. Other-Adam's voice was in his ear whispering, "Let me…oh, let me," and as temptations went, Adam knew this was real quality work that there would be little chance of getting out of. He whimpered softly, feeling those fingers tear at the button and zipper of his jeans and the mouth on his back sink lower and lower, whispering incomprehensibles.

When that hand closed around his hard cock, he had to close his eyes.

He opened them just in time to see Crowley take mercy on the impatient angel and slide his cock into Aziraphale's mouth. Then draw it out again. And then back. And it looked so good--the grace of his movements, the flex of his thighs, the way Aziraphale struggled to rise up to meet him and closed his own eyes in concentration, in savouring. Keeping Aziraphale's wrists still pinned with one hand, Crowley lifted the other to the angel's neck and jaw, caressing him and holding him still as he moved, whispering all sorts of fevered threats and praises: "Oh that's good. Oh, where'd you learn to do _that_…oh, just like that…you're the second-best cocksucker in the universe, you sweet pervert…"

_"Third_ best," Other-Adam chided. And Adam squirmed and writhed as his jeans were pushed down to mid-thigh, and that roaming hand explored and squeezed his arse, massaging it to relax, finally parting him open and breathing hard within his cleft there, before touching him lightly with the very tip of a tongue. Adam mewled and bit his lip as the tongue ran down the groove like a stream, complete with lapping and bubbling, and dabbed at his clenched hole with little darting stabs, each tiny thrust sinking a wee bit deeper until it had enough room to swirl roughly, and withdraw, and return, and repeat. Adam lifted his arse helplessly to give that mouth better access, and then the hand had more space to tug his cock, and then a pair of lips rose up to surround the thrusting tongue and _suck_ him, with lewd wet sounds. Adam began to buck against his Shadow's face; rhythmically and urgently.

His eyes flew open again widely as lightning seared through the darkness behind his lids, and he saw that Crowley had done something utterly impossible with his spine and changed positions completely so that he was now able to bend promisingly over Aziraphale's trousers as he still slowly fucked the angel's mouth from above. With a little hiss he got said trousers open with a touch and was now teasing the very tip of Aziraphale's erection with his flickering tongue.

Adam moaned at the deepest licks yet inside him, the tongue moving in slow wide circles. It was bringing him close to the edge of the edge and threatened to obliterate awareness of everything but itself. That tongue felt so moist and strong, clever and quick and thorough, and it worked him open inexorably, making him helpless.

Which was a _bad_ thing to be.

He started to think about maybe reaching within himself for the beginning of willpower just to see if he still could, when he heard a muffled moan from either the angel or the demon, he wasn't sure, and everywhere was the sound of mouths tasting and devouring, just above and behind the increasing patter of the rain and rush of the wind. Adam groaned loudly, and the wind bore it away.

"You like watching them?" said Other-Adam, crawling up Adam's back with his wet, musky mouth.

"I do," Adam's voice emerged broken. "I do."

"Could be even better," said the other, and Adam proper or very improper could all but feel the power and brimstone in his voice. "You could make them do anything you want, you know."

"Could not."

"Could too. I bet you could. Anything you want to see 'em do."

"I like what they _are_ doing."

The Other went on as though he hadn't heard. "Best part is, they'd never know it wasn't their idea. If you don't want them to."

As hot as Adam's blood was, it started to rapidly chill. Lightning seared the valley with its suddenness.

"I won't," he said.

"Still fighting me, I see," the doppelganger whispered. "That can't end well. Don't you see? I _am_ your power. I _am_ your source. I _am_ your true self."

"Oh no you're not," Adam said firmly. "Not all of it, you're not."

"You're trying to reject me again." Was there actually something plaintive under that commanding voice?

"No," Adam breathed. "No. I'm not. I can _handle_ you, y'see. I can _take_ you."

"Fighting's unproductive," panted the Shadow upon his moist shoulder.

"I know," Adam growled, his voice husky and dark, challenging with a toss of his messy golden head. "Lord of this world, right? Want to know it all, right?"

"Yes," said that eerie both-Adam's-own-and-not voice, for the first time, a little uncertain, and, just possibly a little hopeful.

_"Know_ me," Adam whispered. With a pausebeat of hesitation and a gasp of understanding, the Other did. There were no preliminaries, no endearments, just a first rough thrust deep into him that should have been painful except they didn't want it to be, and Adam just swung his arse upward and against himself to the best of his ability while still gripping the tree branch with cramped hands and strained thighs. He cried out once, loudly and ferally, and the sound was swallowed in a simultaneous eruption of thunder and lightning that actually made Aziraphale and Crowley lift briefly from each other in startlement. Not that Adam could see it now, for his eyes were shut tight against the rainwater and sweat that tried to drip into them; riding the branch that swayed in the wind and being ridden by the creature atop him at once.

The cock that reamed him was thick and burning, and more than that, _searching_. Digging deep for buried light. (Anathema was big on chakras. The light at the base of his spine was deep red, he knew, and he saw it behind his eyelids, pulsing and rising, _absorbing_ the other.) He felt a circle of light bursting and opening, pulsing up the serpentine path of his spine as he moved. There were whimpers and groans above him, flawless bright hair tickling his back and a forehead pressing his shoulderblades helplessly; the movements within him were less and less controlled.

Adam felt a flash of wild triumph. Lightning. Teeth. Wind. A strangled moan. Pulsations. A new burst of wet heat deep within him again and again, finally fading and falling away, and with a satisfied groan, Shadow Adam fell upon him spent as the wind lashed the tree violently.

Or rather, not just upon him, but back _into_ him in a very tingling and surging and thorough way, before Adam could even object that it wasn't fair, _he_ hadn't come yet, and…He heard another violent crackle of thunder like Heaven itself opening, and frankly he wouldn't have been surprised.

But he _was_ a little surprised that there was only one Adam still present and cognizant of what was really happening in the sound of creaking wood at last giving up. There was only one Adam taking the fall as the massive branch pulled away from the trunk and crashed to the ground, Antichrist and all, in a shudder of leaves and a pelting hail of apples.

Slowly Adam took stock of the damage. To the tree, it was considerable. To himself, there was little.

The overall situation, though, that was grim. For he was sitting bare-arsed on the ground, his jeans at half-mast (or more precisely, mid-thighs), and he knew perfectly well without looking that when he raised his head he would see precisely two dishevelled figures (who could, after all, move just that fast) looking down at him.

Well, the least he could do was lift his head and face their expressions. Which were morphing and shifting at an astounding rate. First there had been cold fury, and then comically matching faces of abject humiliation, changing as soon as they realised (more or less at once) just who had been doing the more embarrassing thing.

"Maybe next time we should sell tickets," said Crowley; tousled-haired, still-open shirt crammed hastily into half-heartedly shut trousers.

Aziraphale—rumpled, flushed, languid-eyed--just shook his head and tried not to laugh hysterically.

"After all," the demon continued, eyes narrowing. "It's obvious he enjoyed the show."

"Yes, that is apparent, isn't it?" said Aziraphale cagily. "Frankly, dear, I'm surprised he didn't just invite himself in."

Adam could not control his blushing, nor his squirming, nor the stubbornness of perhaps the most stubborn part of him (which is saying a great deal). There was a certain _defiance_ to it. Most of Adam might want to slink away forever in mortal and immortal shame, but for the several inches that laid claim to its own rigid sense of pride.

"Lord of this world, after all," said Crowley. "We just exist in it."

Adam started to say something like, no, that really wasn't fair, that wasn't how it was…

"Well, if that is the case, which I'm not certain of at all," said Aziraphale, staring at Adam. "It does seem to me in the normal course of things he would get what he really wants, doesn't it?"

"That does follow, I imagine," said Crowley, giving Aziraphale a quizzical look.

Aziraphale reached down and took Adam by the arm to help him up. Rather forcefully, Adam noticed. And Crowley took his other arm.

"Er…"

"We'll _discuss_ this," said the angel coldly. There was a whispering, rushing sound, and Adam felt himself lifted between them, their magnificent wings having only to stretch out and beat the stormy air one and a half times before they were even with the window they should not have been able to pass through (for not only was it too narrow, it wasn't even open).

Adam found himself tossed lightly into the uprighted chair. Crowley pulled a flask from somewhere, took a swig, and passed it to him with a slightly menacing smile.

So they were angry, after all. Bit of a relief in its way, Adam thought. It wouldn't be natural if they weren't.

"What I think my associate is thinking," said Crowley, "is that there's a question here of being careful what you want."

"I was tryin' to work on that very thing," Adam said defeatedly. He could always try to tell the whole story if the situation got really desperate. But only if.

"I'm sure you were, dear boy," said Aziraphale with a twinkly-eyed smile that was far more terrifying than Crowley's, for it was more calculated.

"I was, I really was –" Adam cried. "I was…well, there was all this stuff about willpower, and knowing myself, and being tested, and…"

"And was it informative?" Crowley snickered.

"Yes, but…"

"I'm afraid it all seems rather straightforward to me," Aziraphale said. "You wanted to watch. And so, it being this world and all…watch you _shall."_

Adam gaped.

"Still, though," Crowley said, tapping his chin. "That test of willpower business does seem significant to me…"

"Of course. Quite significant," said Aziraphale, picking up Crowley's discarded tie from the floor and tossing it to him. Their eyes flashed in concert for a moment, and then Crowley _really_ grinned. Quick as a strike, he was behind the chair with it, tying Adam's wrists.

"What? I mean…"

"It's just a necktie. A very expensive one of course. Couldn't _really_ hold you, not for a second. If you really wanted out, that is—but it might be different if you don't _want_ to want out."

Adam took a deep breath. The part of him that had been considering calling it a night reconsidered at the feel of silk binding him.

"Oh, that does look nice," said Aziraphale, nodding to Crowley with a little smile. "And by the way…"

Both of them glimpsed a flash of silver just above his wrist before he clapped it down and looked. "Heads it is."

"Did you cheat?" Crowley yelped.

Aziraphale said nothing. He just grabbed Crowley by the hair and stroked him for a long moment before pushing him to his knees, regarding him with a piercingly adoring expression before sinking down behind him.

With a raspy breath, Crowley let his head fall back on Aziraphale's shoulder and made no protest at all as Aziraphale slowly peeled his shirt from his shoulders and down to his wrists and waist, hands roaming and pausing only to scratch at his ribs and armpits, to reach up again and tug at his nipples until the demon whimpered and tried to guide one of Aziraphale's wrists down towards the front of his trousers.

"Mmm, he _does_ get so needy," Aziraphale whispered to Adam. With a pattern of his fingers on Crowley's hip, all the fabric disappeared. Then Adam had to confront it all; Crowley's lovely, lithe body displayed to him, helpless and aroused, with Aziraphale's manicured hands toying with the soft flesh of Crowley's inner thighs, refusing to touch him where he wanted it most. Adam groaned, completely identifying with the poor demon, his own heated and blood-infused flesh stabbing the air with a downright painful longing for such a simple thing as touch.

But instead he just watched Aziraphale having his way with Crowley. He had little choice. Adam heard Aziraphale giving Crowley a few spanking slaps and Crowley's answering sounds, and he could smell and almost taste and feel them both and he just strained against his bonds and--because it was the reason he was here—he _watched._

And he made a deeply pathetic sort of high-pitched sound as Aziraphale pushed Crowley so far forward the demon's arms came to rest on Adam's thighs; he watched Aziraphale wet his own fingers and apply them deep down below and take up Crowley's hip in one hand and press forward.

To watch Crowley being mounted and taken like this, to see Aziraphale's face go through its process as he writhed and thrust…it was…

_Ngah._ They were _watching_ him watching.

And Crowley's face was so close. Oh, his snake eyes were closed now, true, but if opened them he would see Adam's helpless cock bobbing mere inches from…

"Touch me," Adam whispered.

"Oh, I want to," Crowley murmured, his clenching, shaking hands inching up Adam's thighs until a grasp from Aziraphale made him freeze.

"No!" said the angel in a resonant, commanding voice. "Must I bind your hands too?"

"No, please," Crowley whispered. Adam twitched; that was rough and raw and he wasn't sure it was quite right—Hell's agent submitting to Heaven's so readily.

But that was entirely the wrong way to look at it; Aziraphale tightened his hand in Crowley's sweaty hair, and the demon looked up at him with heavy-lidded snake eyes and whispered, "He does this becausssse…I _love_ it," and then all Adam's reason vanished in watching Aziraphale's rough movements and their effect upon Crowley.

"Want to touch," was all Adam could say.

"I'm sure…you do…" Aziraphale groaned.

"Want to…be touched…"

"Please…I want to…" Crowley rasped.

"NO," said Aziraphale, spanking him.

The tie was nothing. His bindings were nothing. With a thought, Adam could be free and pressing himself against Crowley's body and hooking a leg over Aziraphale's. With a certain thought.

_Fuck,_ he wanted it.

"No," Aziraphale said again, pulling his cock almost completely out of Crowley before driving it home once again.

"Until…aaaargh!" Adam whimpered, starting to be unable not to think about how easy it would be at least to pull his arms free and stroke himself, at the very least.

Crowley's tongue flickered out of his mouth, so dangerously close. "I'd _love_ to," he said.

"No," Aziraphale said again.

"Please," Adam said.

"If … you _really_ wanted…." Aziraphale purred, half-lost in his own sensations but still keen-eyed and staring directly at Adam, " you could _make_ me let him. You could even…make me…_make him_ do it…"

Adam froze.

_"Please_ let me," Crowley whined. His hands were kneading Adam's legs, pushing them open; his face drew closer and closer to Adam's erection.

"I could make you," Adam said, his hips pumping the air just a little, as much as he could get away with. "I could get out too, but…won't…mess you…about…just pretend I'm not here, I shouldn't have been…I _deserve_ this, I really do, I'm sorry…"

"Hmmm, yes, you do….got it right, I think," Aziraphale murmured subsonically. "Do it, love," he whispered to Crowley, biting his shoulderblade and watching in delight as the demon pressed forward and ran his tongue down the length of Adam's shaft before finally closing his mouth over the tip of Adam's cock and sucking, "let us both come in you, it'll be so _nice…"_

Adam yelped and screamed and arched helplessly, loosing his climax into Crowley's mouth, to loud auditory but yet not verbal approval from the demon, who swallowed smugly and then sank back against Aziraphale as hard as he could, giving himself utterly to the angel. Convulsively Crowley sank his teeth into Adam's knee as Aziraphale's hand stroked him fiercely.

"Fuck," Aziraphale groaned, "you're…so…" Adam couldn't take his eyes off Crowley, bucking and writhing and falling back against Aziraphale, an arm around his waist and a hand around his cock, catching every drop he spilled. Aziraphale bit Crowley's neck and came with a shuddering sound, surprisingly quiet, unsurprisingly radiant.

The tie fell away from Adam's wrists. He moved them limply and rubbed them, shaking.

Crowley's gaze on him was nearly more feline than serpentine as Aziraphale held him close and brushed sweaty hair out of his eyes.

"I was…on a sort of…quest," Adam finally muttered.

"Really, now?" asked Aziraphale, chin resting on Crowley's shoulder, plump cheek pressed against a lean one. "And did you find your answers?"

"In a way, I guess so," Adam said. "I just didn't expect it to be so…er…sexual."

"I'm not that surprised," Aziraphale said.

Adam blinked.

"I suppose a thousand years ago I would have been. But now—of course—"

"Of course," Adam said, though it really didn't explain all that much, did it?

"That was when he really had to finally admit he'd gone native," Crowley said, reaching back and caressing Aziraphale's thigh possessively. "It doesn't get much more earthly and human than this."

"Well, that's not _all_ it is, darling," Aziraphale said.

"You do know some people use it as a spiritual thing, right?" Adam said worriedly. "Do you think that's wrong?"

"Oh, no, not necessarily, it's just that, well…"

"You were human all along," said Crowley. "It's not something you ever had to aspire to."

"I _do_ have to work at it," Adam said. "And it's a bloody big mess if I get it wrong."

"So far so good, as far as I'm concerned," said Aziraphale. "Er, I mean, considering the alternatives…"

"Let's _not_ consider 'em," Adam said, realising as he shifted in the chair that his arse was still slightly sore in a not entirely unpleasant way.

Had they looked out the window, they would have seen the branch of the ancient tree as flawlessly restored as if it had never been damaged, but for the huge fall of apples at its feet, knocked loose by the storm.

They did not look, not yet.

When Adam returned to his room in the dead of the night, a manuscript lay on the floor by the window. The window had flown open in the wind and the torrential rains blown in, and when Adam picked up the manuscript gingerly, trying to decide how best to destroy it, it leaked great streams of water and ink. Words and letters dissolved and ran into his lap, staining his torn jeans and dripping meaninglessly on the floor, lost forever. The only glimpse of a phrase he thought he saw read,

_Not by ye Fyre, but the Water thys time._

And Adam Young watched the rainstorm trail away, and he was exhausted, and he felt safe at last, and he laughed and laughed.

 

~fin~


End file.
